Projects On the Docket
by Roberta Lembke
Even though this academic year is far from over, IIT is busy preparing for projects for next year and beyond. While we clearly don't have everything lined up, we do have some projects that are on our “must do” and on “going to do” lists. Here's a preview of some of the projects on our docket.
Moodle Seminars and Update
We have a huge demand for Moodle seminars and have paired up with CILA to schedule two sessions for the summer. The dates are June 1-2 and August 24-25. You can also jot down July 19 as a Moodle project day. Details and information about signing up for the sessions will be announced via e-mail. Over the summer, Moodle will be moving to a newer, faster server. The exact date has not yet been set, but faculty will be notified via e-mail in advance of any downtime.
Wireless Access in Thorson and Kildahl
65% of the incoming class came to campus with a laptop and a growing number of students are requesting wireless network access. During the summer, IIT will install wireless access points in Thorson and Kildahl so that we can run a pilot program to determine the feasibility of future expansion.
Internet2
During the summer St. Olaf will connect to Internet2, a high-speed research network reminiscent of the early days of the Internet (see http://members.internet2.edu/university/universities.cfm for a list of current members). At the same time, we will develop an intercampus network between St. Olaf and Carleton. In order for these connections to take place, St. Olaf Telecommunications is coordinating the installation of fiber between St. Olaf and Carleton and then beyond to the point where we connect to our Internet Service Provider (just outside of Northfield). Our commercial Internet capacity will increase by 30% -- to 12mbps from 9mbps -- while our Internet2 capacity will be 500Mbps, burstable to 1Gigabit per second.
Windows Updates and Safe Computing on Both Macs and PCs
During January and February, Microsoft issued an uncharacteristically large number of patches for the Windows operating system. Apple also released several critical patches for the Macintosh operating system. Keeping computers up to date with the latest patches and security fixes is the best way to maintain a safe and secure computing environment.
There are five simple steps you can take on both Macintosh and PC computers to help keep the computers and networks safe. These five steps are:
-
Clear your temporary internet files at least once a month.
-
Ensure that you have all critical updates for your operating system.
-
Ensure that you have an up-to-date anti-virus software package installed and enabled. Make sure the virus definitions are current and auto-protect is turned on.
-
Install anti-spyware software and scan periodically. IIT recommends a combination of Lavasoft's Ad-Aware and Spybot - Search and Destroy.
-
Switch to Mozilla Firefox for web browsing and Mozilla Thunderbird for reading e-mail. These programs are generally considered more secure and less vulnerable to attacks than other software.
These steps, along with detailed instructions on performing each of steps, can be found at http://www.stolaf.edu/services/iit/documentation/protect/, Five Steps for Healthy Computing.
To automate the distribution of the Windows updates, IIT has deployed an internal Windows Update server. All college-owned computers are configured to check-in with this Windows Update server daily. Any available updates are downloaded in the background, without user intervention. When the updates are ready to install one of two things will happen:
On faculty and staff PCs and PCs in the classrooms, the user will be notified that "New updates are ready to install."
When you see this message, please click on the pop-up message bubble and follow the prompts to install the updates. In some cases a reboot is required to make the patches effective.
On lab machines, the updates are downloaded and installed automatically. When a reboot is required, and there is nobody logged into the PC, the PC will be rebooted automatically; if a user is logged in, the user is prompted to save their work and that the computer will restart in five minutes.
Barracuda Anti-Spam Firewall Testing a Success
Since early February, IIT has been evaluating the Barracuda Anti-Spam Firewall system to see if it could be used to effectively reduce the amount of spam that arrives in everyone's mailbox. After some initial configuration issues, the system has been working as advertised.
The Barracuda uses several methods of determining what is spam and what is not. First, it uses Realtime Blackhole Lists (RBL's), which list top spam-producing e-mail addresses, and removes any e-mail sent from those accounts.
Secondly, the program uses an antivirus check and removes any viruses sent through e-mail.
Third, the program uses SpamAssassin scoring, which puts the e-mail message through various tests, such as checking for misspelled words, a common trick spammers use to bypass message filters.
Finally, the program uses a statistical analysis to give each e-mail a score based on the above criteria. If this score reaches a certain level, it is labeled and quarantined as spam.
Statistics over a one-week period: (2/17-2/23)
Note: Under the Min and Max columns, the total is not the total of the previous rows since the minimums/maximums do not always occur on the same day(s). |
Since implementing the Barracuda system, many people have reported a marked decrease in the amount of spam they receive. As the statistics above show, many messages are being blocked. On average, there are about 12 messages blocked for every 1 message that is quarantined. These are messages that never have to be dealt with as users are only notified of messages that are quarantined.
A survey of faculty and staff was conducted earlier this month to get feedback from the campus community on whether IIT should continue to use the system. The response to that survey was very positive, not only in the number of respondents, but also in the opinion of the Barracuda. Overwhelmingly, the campus community wants to keep the system in place, which IIT is more than happy to do.
Dreamweaver Now Available in Public Areas
Macromedia Dreamweaver,
a professional HTML 
editor for designing, coding, and developing websites, web pages, and web applications, is now available for general use on the computers in Rolvaag Library. This includes the labs in RML 115, RML 134A, RML 330, and RML 560. The visual editing features of Dreamweaver let the user quickly and easily create pages without needing to know any HTML code.
The computers in 134A, 330, and 560 also have Macromedia Fireworks, an image-editing program, and Macromedia Flash, an authoring tool for creating interactive web applications.
Over the past year or so, there has been a significant increase in the number of classes and programs that require web portfolios from students. Previously, those classes were told to use Composer from Netscape or Mozilla. Unfortunately, Composer had several limitations which Dreamweaver fills nicely.
We will be monitoring the demand and use of Dreamweaver in these labs to determine if it needs to be distributed more widely on campus.
Network Disconnections
This year, IIT has taken a much more aggressive stance regarding infected computers. Computers suspected of having a virus infection or causing undue stress on the network have been disconnected quickly from the campus network in order to keep the spread of the virus low and to keep the network working effeciently for everyone else.
Since mid-October, when disconnects started counting against the "3-strikes" policy, we have had 182 disconnects.
- 124 first offense
- 41 second offenses
- 9 third offenses
This shows that 83 people solved the problem right away and have remained clean.
As expected, the number of disconnects was low during November, December and January, but increased dramaticly in February when students returned for second semester, many who had been on off-campus programs. (Chart) The number of disconnects has, once again, tapered off and isn't expected to spike again until this fall.
|
||||||||
|
|
|